Hope everyone had a great Father’s Day today.

I got an early start this morning to run video for church services. Means getting up around 5:30 a.m. and leaving the house just after 6:00 a.m. I always make a quick stop at the local Starbucks for a quick Venti Americano and a bacon sandwich as a reward for getting up so early on a Sunday…keeps me motivated!

Video this morning was kind of a zoo. I work on a Mac at home and never have the problems with my iMac that I do with the desktop PC at church. But it has the software we need to run slideshows and lyrics to the songs during the service. Today for some reason, there was one song that had the wrong words and I couldn’t fix it with hard edits. That shouldn’t happen. We had rehearsal last Thursday and everything worked fine when I left that night. But this morning for some reason, the program rebelled and threw me some loops that I had to work through. At one point I thought for sure we had some malware but now I think its some bad disk sectors. I’m not sure what’s worse. Hopefully we’ll get it all worked out before next weekend.

But after church, we had a quiet day at home with a BBQ. We watched the U.S. Open. Although there wasn’t much drama and the winner, Rory McIlroy played solidly all week and he didn’t choke for the final round. Nice job for a 22 year old.

My token photograph today is a picture of my Mother in Law’s new puppy, Tuffy. He’s a Yorkshire Terrier, about 4 months old.  Cute.

Thanks for reading!!

Cedar Fire Remains

The Cedar fire near Lake Cuyamaca in east San Diego county burned over 300 homes near the spot where this photograph was taken.  Of the 40 volunteers of the Julian-Cuyamaca Fire Protection District at least 14 lost their homes while fighting to save their neighbors.

These are the remains of trees that provide testimony to the destruction that devastated this area.  Photograph is processed in Nik’s Silver Efex 2 with some slight tints of the original color introduced back into the scene.

I have a camera with me everyday and usually it will be with me anywhere I go during the day unless I’m at a meeting.  Even then, with my new iPhone there’s still one close at hand.  I just don’t think of my iPhone as my camera of choice, it’s there as a fail safe backup if ever called on.

But every day before I pack up and leave for work I go through an internal debate about whether to grab my Canon G11 or my Nikon D300.

Eventually it comes down to what my schedule looks like and the camera I more likely want to want to have with me given the circumstances of my schedule.  Will I have to carry it for any length of time?  Will my Nikon be too conspicuous?  Will I have to explain why I’m carrying it?  I work at a university, so I’m around a lot of students some days of the week…I’m a little sensitive and don’t want to intimidate anyone on campus with a big camera.  I’m not into capturing people photographs but they don’t know that.

Of course, I’ll get the best results with the Nikon, no doubt about it.  It’s going to take much better photographs than my Canon G11.  Not that my Canon is a slouch, but it just can’t compare to the control I have over my shots with the Nikon.  If I know that I’m going to be able to take a walk at lunchtime and can do my own thing, then I’ll take my Nikon.   I’m likely to strip it down to its lightest configuration though.  That means leaving my grip at home and usually going with a prime lens, more likely my 50mm f/1.8.  If I’m going to do some macro work, I may go with my 60mm micro lens, the AF 2.8D.

But there are many days where my Canon is just easier to carry.  It’s just a nice size, it shoots raw, and will support brackets for HDR work, its still very capable.  I even keep a Joby GorillaPod nearby so that I can shoot brackets if conditions aren’t good enough to handhold the camera.  The case for my G11 also has room for a remote shutter release which is essential for the G11 for some critical shots that wouldn’t require a tripod on my Nikon with its greater capabilities.  The Canon in a small carry case is just inconspicuous.  Most folks would have no idea I’m carrying a camera till I pull it out to take a shot.  It’s just easier to have with me.  The downside is the shots just aren’t as crisp as my Nikon.

So, my first decision most days is which camera to grab.  I’d say that my Canon is with me 75% of the time.  I’m grateful for the opportunity to make a choice between two capable cameras.  Having one of my cameras with me is most important. It’s great to be able to make a choice that fits my needs for the day so that I’ll be ready if that once in a lifetime shot ever presents itself!

Today we celebrated my grandson Emmett’s first birthday party.  His birthday was actually earlier this week but today, being the weekend, we all got together for some family fun.  We went to a park on the coast of north San Diego county, the weather was absolutely spectacular with temperatures in the low 80′s…just perfect.

Obviously the focus was on Emmett today.  I took along one of my best prime lens, the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8.  The rendering of images using this inexpensive but wonderful lens is just amazing.  The primary issue you need to work is depth of field.  Opening it up too much for a shallow depth of field on a bright day is a challenge.  So most of my images were stopped down to somewhere between f/2.0 and f/4.0 which was just perfect.

This is my favorite image of the day.

Mmm...love that cake!

We also make sure he gets his veggies!

I love carrots too!

Good Save!

I’m back to shooting lacrosse for the local high school team. My two boys played lacrosse at Poway High School here in North San Diego county before moving up to NCAA Division III lacrosse at Whittier College where they each played for four years. Now my youngest son is head junior varsity coach for the high school team. I built and maintained the team’s website years ago until my kids graduated when I turned it over to new parents. But this year the parents asked me to take the site back and rebuild it. Obviously the team site needs pictures so that’s a good fit for me too.   So, I’ve been shooting the sport for quite a while now and am much more particular about the quality of the shots than I might have been years ago when I first started out.

Now I’m not so focused on getting good shots of my kids but rather getting good shots period. It’s always a a particular challenge shooting sports at night when lacrosse games always seem to be scheduled. I’m going to be writing about some techniques to make the best photographs you can of fast action sports in challenging light for my contribution to PhotographyBB Online Magazine this month so look for more there in a few weeks.

Taken with a Nikon 105mm at f/3.5, 1/250sec

It’s all about the light!

Good photography is hard.  Getting the composition right, telling a story, making a compelling image.  Finding all these things in one photograph can make it a winner.  But missing the good light could make it or break it.  Light creates depth and mood.  These photographs don’t have all the ingredients of a great image, far from it.  But they do have nice afternoon light making rather ordinary subjects somewhat interesting.  Taking these same shots at mid day would flatten them to the point of putting them in the category of a snapshot, nice to look but that’s about it.

Purple Sunshine

Flower Bud

Finished my taxes today…finally stopped procrastinating and just got them done.  After a grueling few hours of that, going out for short late afternoon walk was a nice and welcome reward.

Hope you’re all doing great!

Sunning!

Today I went on a tour to the Naval Mine Warfare Center in San Diego where they train Navy men and women in countermeasures against sea mines.  Very interesting place and a really specialized skill set.  These men and women are amazing, we owe them endlessly for their skill and dedication to our country.

After the tour, I walked along the embarcadero. There were three cruise ships tied up at the waterfront so it was really busy with visitors.

Being midday, I didn’t expect the light to be the best so I took along my new Singh Ray Vari-N-Duo filter with a polarizer.  Lots of interesting people and things to see.  When the ships are here, it seems

Head On

like every Tom, Dick and Harry comes out to peddle their wares (usually junky, touristy things) or to ask for a handout.  Not the best impression of our great city being displayed.

I hope those who are visiting San Diego for the first time don’t think that this is how it is all over our fair city.

All of these shots are available for viewing and purchase in the San Diego section of my portfolio.

I Can Fly!